1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vehicle repair and more particularly to apparatuses and methods for balancing an unbalanced vehicle driveshaft.
2. Description of the Related Art
Noise, vibration and harshness conditions are a common cause for vehicle owners to bring their vehicles to dealerships or other repair facilities for service. These conditions are often difficult to diagnose and are one of the top “No Trouble Found” (NTF) anomalies in the service environment today. In many instances, after a NTF diagnosis, the vehicle is returned to the owner without properly addressing the problem. These can lead to customer dissatisfaction and increased service costs when a customer returns the vehicle for additional service.
One cause of the noise and vibration conditions is an unbalanced driveshaft, which is often difficult to diagnose. If a service technician discovers that this is the likely cause of the condition, the driveshaft can also be difficult to easily and quickly repair. Typically, after a technician has identified an unbalanced driveshaft, the driveshaft must be removed and sent to a different facility for balancing. The balancing process typically requires welding a known weight at a strategic location on the driveshaft to counter the imbalance. The driveshaft is then sent back to the technician so it can be re-installed on the vehicle. This process is expensive, time consuming and is not effective in all cases because the imbalance may be the result of components that are left on the vehicle.
As an alternative, the driveshaft can be balanced on the vehicle. Most procedures that are currently in use for on-vehicle balancing utilize hose clamps for attaching balancing weights to the driveshaft to counter the imbalance. Generally, two hose clamps are used and rotated relative to the driveshaft and relative to each other in order to obtain the desired net balance weight at the desired location on the driveshaft. This approach is inherently inaccurate and relies heavily on “trial and error” methods for determining where to position the driveshaft.